Samsung 1Q sales down 10%, earnings fall 22%

Samsung Electronics Co. today reported net income of $950 million (1.24 trillion won) in the first quarter-down 22% from the same period a year ago.

First-quarter sales totaled $6.62 billion (8.6 trillion won), down 5.5% from the previous quarter and down 10% from the year-ago period. A Samsung spokesman said sales and net earnings were impacted by the global economic decline, but were also helped by a ramp-up in Direct Rambus DRAM production.

Analysts estimated that Samsung has almost an 80% share in the global RDRAM market.

In a sales breakdown by business units, the Samsung Semiconductor group reported $2.3 billion (3 trillion won) in first-quarter sales on operating income of $792 million and a profit margin of 35%.

In this category, memory chips had $1.6 billion, LCD flat panels $385 million, and large-scale integration (LSI) chip sales were $361 million. The information and communications business had $1.5 billion in sales and operating income of $177 million and profit margin of 12%.

The digital media business had $1.9 billion sales and operating income of $161 million and profit margin of 8%. Home appliances recorded $60 million sales and operating income of $9 million.

Samsung said it has reduced its 2001 capital expenditures to $4.7 billion from an originally projected $5.6 billion. Officials said all the decrease related to investments in the semiconductor business.

The firm announced that its liability-to-equity ratio decreased in the quarter to 57% from 66%. Total liabilities at the end of the quarter were $7.5 billion.